Traditional Myanmar Silk Weaving Workshop

  

Day excursion to Amarapura Myanmar.  We visited Thein Nyo Silk Weaving shop and discovered sweet and industrious women who were quite gracious allowing us to observe and photograph their work.  No air-conditioning or ergonomic office products in sight.  Their wages average about $3 - $5 a day for piecework employment. According to historical record,  the Myanmar Textile Industry has lasted over thousands of years. Ancient mural-painting and palm-leaf writings indicate that the weaving industry thrived in Bagan, Inwa and Amarapura.  

The traditional weaving process such as picking cotton sprout, ginning cotton, carding and fluffing cotton, spinning cotton into thread, dyeing, starching, winding threads into skeins, preparing the wrap for weaving and finally weaving cloth in the past was widely practiced by Myanmar women.  Hand looms, spinning and reeling machines are only for the most learned. They also used traditional dyeing from natural materials like barks, leaves, flowers, fruits, and roots by pounding and mixing. Lamentably, only a few people today know about the natural dyeing process so we were delighted that we were able to witness these talented women working at this vanishing craft.